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LOS DESAPARECIDOS: During a 2000 trip to Argentina, Freimark heard An evocative work shows a single ghostly figure emerging from, or
directly form the voices of survivors of the horror perpetrated during the disappearing into, a black ground. A lithograph, called Person Disappearing
Fascist dictatorship of the 1970s when at least 30,000 Argentineans were (2002) is, indeed, a picture of an individual literally falling to pieces. In
made to “disappear”. Thugs, wearing masks, would rip people out of bed 2002, when seeing people swimming in Lake Balaton in Hungary, he
or men in civilian clothes would drag people off the street into waiting recalled the stories of people being thrown into the sea and made the
automobiles. Most of them were never seen again. This was done under stirring watercolor, Drowning woman. The series was first shown at Duke
the so-called Condor Plan, which Henry kissinger helped organize with University in North Carolina in 2003. In 2002 he had written, produced
the pretext of fighting Communism. These perpetrated acts ended in and directed the documentary film Los Desaparecidos, based largely on
torture, murder and burials in mass graves in remote areas. interviews with women who survived to tell their stories. The film was
shown in twenty international film festivals, received seven awards,
Other victims were thrown out of airplanes into the sea. Sometimes including the world Film Festival Houston Award, where it competed
whole families were taken away. The thugs went especially after with 450 entries. (Excepts)
pregnant women, to take their babies to be brought up by strangers Peter Selz
who were sympathetic to the government. The young mothers were
often killed. Eventually a heroic group of older women took the risk of  stUFF HaPPeNs 2001 wATERCOLOR / CHARCOAL 42x30 IN. / 105x75 CM.
demonstrating in the main square of Buenos Aires and Las Madres de la
Plaza demanded to know the whereabouts of their stolen children. Their
action (and the Falkland Island disaster) helped bring about the end of the
Fascist dictatorship. Freimark responded to the atrocities with a series of
watercolors, drawings and prints to commemorate Los Desaparecidos.
There are a number of horizontal monotypes in which we see rows of
figures, phantoms of former human beings, standing and walking. The
negative spaces between them may indicate those who vanished. Some of
the figures were done in dark, motley colors; others are rendered simply
in black and white. Fragments of hands, and what appears like ghastly
features can be made out in some of the pieces. There is one monotype
in which we can see a human at the bottom of a very deep shaft, perhaps
referring to a person who was buried alive. There is a watercolor, Mural
de Cabezas, of a large pile of skulls against a purple sky, done when he
thought of the ones who disappeared not.

 LOs DesaPareCIDOs V (tHe DIsaPPeareD ONes) 2001 MONOTYPE, HAND
PRINTED AT gRASS vALLEY STUDIOS BY BOB FREIMARk 22x30 IN. / 55x76 CM.

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